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Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

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Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#151

Post by hulitu »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #89
peter422 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem likely that Google will pay to store every bit of encrypted customer data that is currently stored forever because potentially decades from now it could be cracked and they could access all that amazing ancient private information.

It still puzzles me that people just can't understand the the huge chasm between storing and using peoples data from their own products and stealing data from other companies thats stored on your systems in the hope that one day it can be decrypted and used to improve ads. Google is a huge company, the idea that it would set out to do something that everyone involved in would know is directly breaking the law (rather…

> It still puzzles me that people just can't understand the the huge chasm between storing and using peoples data from their own products and stealing data from other companies thats stored on your systems in the hope that one day it can be decrypted and used to improve ads.

Data is still data.

> Google is a huge company, the idea that it would set out to do something that everyone involved in would know is directly breaking the law (rather than doing something thats a grey area, or they know is legal but 'unethical' or could become a PR issue, or destroy trust in them and destroy their product) is fairly unbelievable.

They do this in Europe by not complying with GDPR. ( and they are not the only one)

> This comes up again and again with stories about Google and (particularly) AWS cloud computing. I hope for better on HN!

Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#152

Post by hulitu »

SilverRed wrote: post #113
exitheone wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sentiment seems so weird to me. Can you point to a single enterprise offering where Google is collecting data and using it themselves? Or where it would even make sense to do so? Corporate customers pay a lot more per byte than the fleeting value of private data so Google has a strong incentive to never ever touch that data.

Peter's comment comes off as satire to me. A joke about how absurd it would be for google to store 8 exabytes of data for decades because it might one day be useful.

For them, maybe not. But maybe you heard that there are some agencies which are interested.

Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#153

Post by eurasiantiger »

pseudo0 wrote: post #134
brutus1213 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Against a state-actor, perhaps not. Check out quantum cryptography. It is a serious business.

The current academic consensus is that AES-256 is quantum resistant, as even with Grover's algorithm the attack would still require 2^128 bits of work. Generally symmetric encryption schemes are impacted to a much lesser extent than public key cryptosystems, with larger key sizes sufficing to ensure quantum resistance. I'd be quite surprised if Apple weren't using AES-256 already.

They are using AES-128.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#154

Post by paganel »

ahmedfromtunis wrote: post #145
paganel wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> does it matter whether it is Apple or Google who is holding the physical data? It might matter, yes. A company run by a guy like Eric Schmidt is a lot more likely to play nice with the US government when it comes to privacy compared to a company run by a guy like Cook, who from the outside seems obsessed with user-privacy (as long as China isn't directly involved).

Didn't Schmidt retire as CEO 10 years ago (and 3 years ago as chairman)? Isn't now a Pichai-run company?

Of course, just wanted to say that not two big US companies are the same, it highly depends on who leads them. The powers that be that decided that a guy like Schmidt was fit to run a company like Google could do that again.

Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#155

Post by pseudo0 »

eurasiantiger wrote: post #153
pseudo0 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current academic consensus is that AES-256 is quantum resistant, as even with Grover's algorithm the attack would still require 2^128 bits of work. Generally symmetric encryption schemes are impacted to a much lesser extent than public key cryptosystems, with larger key sizes sufficing to ensure quantum resistance. I'd be quite surprised if Apple weren't using AES-256 already.

They are using AES-128. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

A minimum of AES-128, which could mean 100% AES-128 or 1% AES-128 from old iOS devices that haven't been updated in years. And even AES-128 would require doing a 2^64 exhaust on a quantum computer, which would be quite a remarkable feat.

Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#156

Post by paranoidrobot »

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #121
helsinkiandrew wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still puzzles me that people just can't understand the the huge chasm between storing and using peoples data from their own products and stealing data from other companies thats stored on your systems in the hope that one day it can be decrypted and used to improve ads. Google is a huge company, the idea that it would set out to do something that everyone involved in would know is directly breaking the law (rather…

I mean, there’s these posts on Hacker News claiming to be from former AWS employees saying they stole customer data to launch competing services: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23929959 There’s also mainstream reporting that Amazon employees used retail sales data to launch competing products: https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-scooped-up-data-from-its... Maybe the first story is fake and the second is real… b…

> from former AWS employees saying they stole customer data to launch competing services

You're reading that a lot differently than I am.

The quoted post says:

>AWS proactively looked at traction of products hosted on its platform, built competing products, and then scraped & targeted customer list of those hosted products

None of that reads, to me, as them having had to use confidential data to do any of these things.

You can identify many organisations that are running on AWS without knowing anything about AWS accounts - blog posts, IP space, public code, social media comments from staff, linkedin and all sorts of other places will often reveal that.

Scraping/finding customer lists can be done using research, too. I've spoken to Account Manager-types at places and they've often used various tools that scrape other public resources to identify customers of competing services.

Swap out company names, and it's effectively what I've seen from a bunch of companies, without it delving into anything unethical.

Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#157

Post by remus »

VortexDream wrote: post #149
remus wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that is the argument, does it matter whether it is Apple or Google who is holding the physical data? Apple and Google are both based in the US and beholden to the US government, so from the government's perspective it's just a change of address when they send out a warrant.

It doesn't. I'm not sure why you think I think there's a difference. Any corporation that stores our data long-term is a threat to our privacy and our rights.

Oh cool, thanks for clarifying! In the context of the article, I thought you were saying one was better than the other.

Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#158

Post by [deleted] »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #126
fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, there’s these posts on Hacker News claiming to be from former AWS employees saying they stole customer data to launch competing services: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23929959 There’s also mainstream reporting that Amazon employees used retail sales data to launch competing products: https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-scooped-up-data-from-its... Maybe the first story is fake and the second is real… b…

But those cases are very different too (I’m not trying to defend what they did). Talking to a startup then copying their product is douchy but not illegal. Using Amazon.com sales data is like looking at the public “top products in electronics” and selling your own version of the top sellers - I imagine all large retailers do something similar when deciding what products to make own versions of. Hacking computers, net…

[deleted]

Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#159

Post by lxgr »

occamrazor wrote: post #147
fouc wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying there is no encryption guaranteed to be good for the next 50 years ?

Of course there is no guarantee: AES256 could be broken tomorrow, or maybe it has already been. What we know is that, extrapolating compute speed from the past decades and even assuming quantum computers become useable in practice, the best algorithms we currently have cannot be brute-forced within the next 50 years.

> AES256 could be broken tomorrow, or maybe it has already been.

This is extremely unlikely.

> What we know is that, extrapolating compute speed from the past decades and even assuming quantum computers become useable in practice, the best algorithms we currently have cannot be brute-forced within the next 50 years.

Quantum computers only offer a quadratic speedup against symmetric ciphers.

AES 256 will survive much longer than the next 50 years against brute force attacks.

It will either be broken spectacularly, using theoretical methods entirely inconceivable today, or live on – brute force is of no concern at all due to the amounts of energy and matter required to perform it against 256 bit keys.

Re: Apple Reportedly Storing over 8M Terabytes of iCloud Data on Google Servers

#160

Post by 988747 »

omegalulw wrote: post #39
bravetraveler wrote: post #2

I guess 8 exabytes doesn't get the same number of clicks Edit: Not really trying to be facetious, but come on. Apple using a lot of storage at a lot of places isn't too surprising

8M terabytes isn't a big number tho. 1TB/person is fairly common these days and Apple has like 900M+ users.

Is 1TB/person really that common? I mean, my iPhone has 64GB of storage, mostly used for storing photos, which I might want to backup. Other than that, what else do I put on iCloud?
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